FILE PHOTO: New Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt leaves 10 Downing Street in London, Britain, October 14, 2022. - REUTERSPIX: New finance minister Jeremy Hunt scrapped Prime Minister Liz Truss’s economic plan and scaled back her vast energy subsidy on Monday, launching one of the biggest fiscal policy U-turns in British history to stem a dramatic loss of investor confidence.
The former foreign and health minister was appointed on Friday after Truss sacked Kwasi Kwarteng, her close ally. Economists said the measures would not plug the gap in the public finances or undo the damage done by the government’s radical policy, but were a move in the right direction. After scrapping one of the tax cuts, Truss fired Kwarteng on Friday, saying she accepted her plans had gone “further and faster” than investors were expecting.
Asked at a daily briefing how the prime minister could retain any credibility after forsaking the policy that secured her election by party members, Truss’s spokesman said she was listening to the public, her colleagues and to the markets.